Chaos Catastrophe
by Divide Zero
Summary: When Fate is captured by a collaboration of Agrabah's enemies, Chaos inadvertently starts destroying Reality with his lighthearted gimmicks, as there's now nobody to balance him out. Aladdin, Genie, and their friends must attempt to restore balance.
1. Chapter 1

Chaos Catastrophe

**. . .**

When Fate is captured by a collaboration of Agrabah's enemies, Chaos inadvertently starts destroying Reality with his lighthearted gimmicks, as there's now nobody to balance him out. Aladdin, Genie, and their friends must attempt to either stop Chaos or free Fate—before it's too late.

Chaos Catastrophe, Chapter 1: The Siege of Agrabah

"Um…_Al_?" quavered a voice on the other side of Aladdin's bedroom door in an all-too-familiar tone. Aladdin had been sleeping in a little later than usual at the Palace this morning, but he had good reason too.

The night before, a monstrous…_thing_…had risen out of the sand outside the city, and had quickly proceeded to attack Agrabah. The battle to defend his home had at first seemed hopeless to the onlookers whose homes were being destroyed by the creature, despite of all of Aladdin's past victories. However, Aladdin and his friends knew otherwise.

Not to say that it would be easy to bring down this latest monstrosity, of course. This one proved to be particularly tricky, as Aladdin, Genie, and the rest of their friends at the Palace had discovered that not only had the creature laying siege to their city come _out_ of the sand, it was _made _of sand.

Each time the sand monster was sliced at by the swords of the palace guard, or blown away by the giant electrical fan Genie had momentarily turned himself into, or even beheaded by Aladdin and Carpet bringing a rope down through its large neck, the creature always reformed. It seemed indestructible—the group could separate sections of the monster, but they couldn't destroy the miniscule grains of sand that composed it.

But as it turned out, Aladdin and the others hadn't needed to. When the sand monster accidentally stepped onto some of the burning buildings that had caught fire in its destructive rampage, it had quickly leapt into the air with a yowl of pain and scorched feet. Aladdin realized the creature's weakness must be fire, and he had Genie distract the monster while he ran back to the Palace for supplies.

Genie had stalled as long as he could by dousing the sand creature in a blast of water and then turning himself into a giant bucket and plastic shovel. With his new form, Genie had proceeded to scoop up the monster into his bucket half and make a towering sandcastle with the creature's temporarily hardened and slowed-down state.

It hadn't taken long for the castle the creature had been molded into to begin shaking with rage as the sand monster furiously fought to break free of its contorted shape, but it wasn't able to liberate itself before Aladdin had returned with a cartload of the Palace's royal fireworks. Stocking the castle full to bursting with the explosives imported from Agrabah's trading ally, Pay Ling, Aladdin had dropped a single torch into the sand monster while riding Carpet from a safe height in the air. It was just as well, as the sand monster had exploded in a giant blast of flame—leaving behind a slightly dilapidated castle made of glass.

Although none of Agrabah's citizens had been happy with the monster's attack, they were delighted to see that at least some good could come from its corpse. The Sultan had declared the new structure "Agrabah's Crystal Palace," and was thrilled with the thought of all the tourism and commerce it would bring to their desert city-state.

By the time the battle was over, though, the sun was just rising over the dunes on the horizon of the Land of the Seven Deserts. This lit up the new Crystal Palace with a dazzling array of prisms, but left Aladdin and the rest of the group to face the fact that they'd lost an entire night's sleep defending the city from what would become their latest tourist attraction.

And so Aladdin and most of the rag-tag gang of Agrabah's unofficial defenders had turned in for the day. Aladdin was most comfortable at his old hidden hovel in the roof of an abandoned mud-brick building in one of the poorer, seedier, and certainly more crime-laden districts of the city—but the Palace was closer, and he had been more than happy to "make do" with one of the Sultan's many luxuriant spare rooms.

However, the sleep he was getting in the intoxicatingly comfortable bed was just now being interrupted by one of Aladdin's oldest friends, Genie. Aladdin had often wondered if Genie actually needed to sleep—he certainly seemed to enjoy it, but whether or not he _needed _it was something else entirely, and currently Aladdin had his doubts.

What could be so important that would require Genie—who would normally be asleep inside the lamp that was now his home rather than his prison—to wake Aladdin so soon after the night they'd just had?

"Yes, Genie?" Aladdin mumbled, not opening his eyes in a vain attempt to keep out the light pouring in through the massive window Genie had just pulled the curtains away from.

"Sorry to break the spell, sleeping beauty, but we've got a _bit _of a problem!"

"And what would that be?" Aladdin inquired, sitting up in his bed reluctantly and stretching his arms as he gave a loud yawn. Despite how much trust he put in Genie's judgment of danger, Aladdin had faced much danger in his time with Genie, and it always ended with one outcome: they won. Not easily, mind you—and there had been _plenty _of close calls—but, sadly enough, the almost daily adventures Aladdin his friends faced were beginning to seem less like threats and more like pathetic attempts by many of the inept villains who called themselves Agrabah's enemies.

But it seemed that that would not be the case today.

"Well…let's just say that you'd better take a look for yourself…"

_No jokes_? _No tricks_? _No weird references_? Thought Aladdin. Even in their darkest hour, Genie was prone to his quirks. An absence of such mannerisms did not bode well. _This must be serious_.

Walking out onto the balcony of the window, Aladdin gazed out over the city of Agrabah to the desert beyond the city walls. There, a vast cloud of sand billowed and blew menacingly just beyond the city's reach.

"What, a sandstorm?" Aladdin asked his friend, surprised to see something so unassuming and common. "We get those all the time, Genie. What's so different about this one?"

"What's different? _What's different_?" Genie nearly screamed, obviously terrified of what he saw out the window. "I'll tell you what's different—_that_, my boy, is _no _sandstorm!"

"Then what is it?" Aladdin continued.

"…company…" Genie whimpered.

"Company?" Aladdin echoed, looking away from the distant yet fast-approaching cloud of sand to face Genie again. "What company?"

But Genie was gone.

"Huh?" Aladdin wondered aloud. "Genie?"

"RED ALERT! RED ALERT!" a voice boomed throughout the Palace—a voice that sounded suspiciously like Genie, if Genie had been commander of an army. "THIS IS _NOT _A DRILL, FOLKS! _BATTLE STATIONS_!"

_Now _that's _the Genie I know_, Aladdin thought to himself with a wry smile. Even if he didn't exactly believe the oncoming sandstorm was something to fear like Genie made it out to be, it was nice to hear his friend back to using his usual parlance.

"But what about a small sandstorm could make Genie so afraid?" Aladdin asked himself, turning back to the window to give the windblown sand one last look before closing the curtains to keep out the pesky particles that would inevitably blow in otherwise.

Suddenly, a large, thick metal barrier slid down in front of the window, almost slicing off Aladdin's nose.

Aladdin jumped back in surprise, but his expression quickly changed to one of mild annoyance.

_Genie, what are you up to now_?

A siren began blaring throughout the Palace hallways as Aladdin ran down them, searching for Genie to demand that he stop this madness. He heard iron barricades boarding up the windows of each room he passed, while the spinning lights of electric alarms appeared to line the walls.

"WHAT IS THAT RACKET?" squawked Iago, his ruffled, feathery head poking out from the door to the bedroom he reluctantly shared with Abu whenever Aladdin and his constant monkey companion stayed at the Palace. Abu also peeked out of the doorway, below Iago's flapping form, watching Aladdin sprint past and covering his tiny ears to block out Genie's blaring sirens.

"Genie's afraid of the sandstorm!" Aladdin called to them over his shoulder, not pausing to explain any more.

Rounding a bend, Aladdin found the master staircase that led up to the tallest room of the tallest tower of the Palace. Siren sounds blasted down from upstairs, prompting Aladdin to take them to at a time on his way up.

The former street-rat's midmorning jog was rewarded with seeing Genie in what was usually the observatory at the top of the Palace, but seemed to have been converted into the genie's personal base of wartime operations. Blipping and bleeping machines with green screens and microphones jutting out from them lined the walls, while the floor was crisscrossed with countless wires connecting them all to a central control panel that Genie was furiously typing away on, watching the monitors in front of his desk intently.

Aladdin saw that each monitor was displaying a different view from outside the Palace, covering the big building's front, sides, and rear—which were even now becoming magically encased with Palace-sized armor.

"Genie, what's going on?" Aladdin yelled over the sirens, having to strain to make himself heard.

"Sorry, Al!" Genie replied, not turning his eyes away from the monitors. "But we're in full lockdown!"

"Full lockdown?" Aladdin repeated, confused. "Genie, what are you talking about?"

"Nobody gets in or out of the Palace until whatever's using that sandstorm for cover _leaves_!"

"What do you mean, 'using the sandstorm for cover?'" Aladdin questioned, hoping to get a little insight into Genie's apparent sudden delirium.

"Take a look!" Genie exclaimed, sliding the rolling office chair he was sitting in to give Aladdin a full view of the monitors. The preparations Genie was making on the Palace must have been completed, because now the cameras Genie must have hooked up to the display screens showed the streets of Agrabah.

At first glance, Aladdin saw everything he would've expected to see in a sandstorm—the tiny particles flying everywhere, obscuring visibility to almost zero, with people taking shelter in their houses and stores. But upon closer inspection, Aladdin saw that the expression on the faces of a few citizens huddled in the corner of a mud-brick building was one of absolute terror. What appeared to be a family shook with fear, clinging to each other in the part of their dwelling that was farthest from the street.

Taking shelter from a sandstorm was one thing, but _hiding_? What could the citizens of Agrabah possibly be so afraid of? The city had weathered far worse than a few grains of windblown sand, and even far worse sandstorms than the one enveloping the city right now.

Then something darted in front of the camera—only for a split second—and was gone.

"What was that?" Aladdin asked Genie.

"_That_, my dear Aladdin," Genie explained, quivering with just as much fear as Aladdin had seen in the faces of the family huddled in their home. "Is what I'm trying to protect us from!"

"It's probably just someone who was out when the sandstorm hit and were caught outside," Aladdin said uneasily, trying to find a bit of comforting logic in the situation.

"Then tell me, Al—what wayward pedestrian looks like _this_?"

Genie rewound the last few seconds of footage from the camera, pausing the stream right as the 'pedestrian' strode in front of the screen. The bleary, low-resolution image was only a dark, shapeless blob, but as Genie hit the "image enhance" buttons, it began to look increasingly less so. In a few seconds, it resembled neither a blob nor a citizen of Agrabah—but Nefir Hasenuf, the greedy, selfish imp.

Aladdin would recognize the squat, fat, bird-headed being with bat wings anywhere.

"Nefir Hasenuf? What's _he_ doing here?" Aladdin growled, his fists clenched at the memory of the group's past encounters with unscrupulously dirty businessman. "If he thinks he can just waltz right into Agrabah, then he's got another thing coming!"

Aladdin quickly turned to go personally deliver that thing Nefir had coming, but grabbed his shoulder.

"But that's just it, Al—it isn't _just _Nefir!" Genie informed.

"So he brought his imp friends with him?" Aladdin sneered. "All the more reason to give Nefir a proper _welcoming_!"

"Oh no, it's more than imps he's brought along," Genie went on. "Take a look at this!"

With a snap of his fingers, the camera monitors multiplied tenfold, filling the observatory. Aladdin saw bits and pieces of nearly every part of Agrabah displayed, each showing a disturbingly similar theme. Citizens hid in their homes, while every enemy Aladdin could remember having faced marched past them. Nefir was indeed far from alone—not only were there the other imps he regularly employed to help him in his dangerous moneymaking schemes, Aladdin caught glimpses of several others as well. There was Abis Mal & Haroud Hazi Bin, Mozenrath and Xerxes, as well as a cavalcade of others, each steadily advancing towards the Palace.

"It seems as if _every _evildoer we've ever clashed with is coming _here_!" Genie quavered. "And _that's _why we're in lockdown!"

"But Genie, if every villain is here…" Aladdin gulped, at last realizing the true weight—or so he thought—of what was coming. "Then that means we need to be out there in the streets now more than ever! None of those citizens are protected like we are here in the Palace!"

"Thankfully, they don't need to be," Genie countered. "Take a look, Al."

Following Genie's pointing finger back to the monitors, Aladdin saw that none of the undesirables Agrabah's defenders had fought in the past actually seemed to be causing any harm to the populace. Indeed, the only negative infliction this group appeared to be making the citizens suffer through was fear.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Aladdin inquired, reflecting on how that's all the villains he and the group had encountered ever seemed to do.

"Don't know for sure," Genie replied. "But my best guess is that they're not here for the city—they're all here for _you_, Al!"

"Me?"

"Well, you _have _managed to humiliate them and thwart their dastardly plans more than anyone else they've probably encountered…" Genie added. "They must have realized that they couldn't take you out alone, and so they all gathered together to come and eliminate their main obstacle—you."

"Oh…" Aladdin gulped. "That makes sense."

"But don't worry, Al!" Genie continued. "Even if there is a horde of bloodthirsty cutthroats outside the walls wanting to kill you, we should be safe in the newly refurbished 'Palace of Protection!'"

Aladdin did have to admit, despite all the potential power those outside the Palace presented, the fortress that Genie had converted the Palace into seemed like it would be nearly impossible for even _them _to infiltrate.

"But what do we do for food and water?" Aladdin asked, the survivalist thoughts bred from years of living on the streets as a thief suddenly springing into his head.

"Not a problem, Al!" Genie replied, brightening up immediately at the mention of one of his favorite topics—food. With a snap of his fingers, Genie produced a dish covered with an elegant array of buttered lobster. "I can take care of the housing necessities, and none of our dear old friends outside can possibly get into the Palace now—either through force or magic. We just have to stay in here for the rest of our lives!"

Even though that idea didn't strongly appeal to Aladdin, he had to agree that staying inside was currently the best strategy. There was no way he could take that many adversaries, even with the help of Genie and the rest of his Palace friends.

Besides, the villains couldn't wait outside the Palace _forever_, could they?

Unfortunately, it turned out they wouldn't need to.


	2. Chapter 2

Chaos Catastrophe, Chapter 2: Planning for Peril

"Hello, _Aladdin_," purred a maliciously content—and all-to-familiar—voice. "What's the matter? Aren't you happy to see us?"

Genie's monitors suddenly all filled up with a single image—a tall woman, seeming to be a mix of feline and human, but with the worst qualities of both. It was no wonder she was described by everyone she crossed paths with as "evil incarnate."

"_Mirage_," Aladdin spat, gritting his teeth at all the memories _this _particular adversary brought to mind—and they were far more numerous—and _unpleasant_—than those connected to Nefir. "I should've guessed _you'd _be behind all this."

"Although I _do _so relish the pleasure of being the first to inform you and all of Agrabah of their demise," Mirage continued. "I can't take _all _the credit. After all, how could I have gotten all this help if you hadn't given them a mutual interest? i.e., _killing you_."

"Are you saying that it's _my _fault you're all here?" Aladdin inquired, incredulous.

"That's _exactly _what I'm saying, _hero_," Mirage hissed. "If it weren't for you, all of these little thieves and saboteurs and so-called 'sorcerers' would be a disorganized band of darkness, always causing local problems but never ruining the _bigger picture_. So, in a way, I guess I should thank you, Aladdin—_you're _the reason we've all been able to become a united front. Our mutual hatred of you brought us together to eliminate the one hero we could never take on alone, and once you're out of the way, not a force on this Earth with be able to stop us!

"But the _best _part," Mirage finished. "Is killing you with you knowing that you're the very reason we joined together into this unstoppable force in the first place! That's right, Aladdin—_you're _the reason the world will fall to the forces of evil!"

With a raucous, mewling laugh that could've curdled milk, Mirage vanished in a flash of green light, leaving Genie's security monitors to once more display the sand-swept, imperiled city. The various villains had all but encircled the Palace by now, closing it off on all sides.

"_Wellllll_," Genie murmured. "_That _was reassuring."

"Is that really true?" Aladdin asked his constant companion. "Am _I _the cause of all this?"

Aladdin swept his hand at the security monitors for emphasis, indicating the scours of cowering citizens holed up in their homes as the beings of nightmares marched past. What must it feel like, to be one of them, out there in the streets with those…_monsters_?

Aladdin didn't know what felt worse. Knowing that he may be the cause of that very fear, or wondering what the citizens must think of him now that they saw him hiding in the heavily fortified Palace instead of out there with them.

"Not at all, Al," Genie said reassuringly. "Sure, if you hadn't defeated every last bloodthirsty villain out there at least once then none of them would be here all together at the same time to threaten Agrabah with their evil might—"

"Not helping, Genie," Aladdin sighed, burying his head in his hands.

"—you didn't let me finish, Al," Genie continued. "Sure, you may have united these baddies because you beat them, but if you _hadn't _beaten even one of them, then there would be no Agrabah for them to threaten in the first place!"

"Huh?" Aladdin said, looking up with a slightly less forlorn look on his face.

"Think about it, Al," Genie went on. "Every one of those nasty ne'er-do-wells wanted to either destroy Agrabah or turn it into their personal dictatorship, but _you _stopped 'em each time! Without you, Agrabah wouldn't have survived as long as it did!"

Aladdin sat for a moment as the truth of what Genie said sank in.

"Maybe so," Aladdin finally conceded after a prolonged silence. "But maybe it _would've _been better for just _one _of those villains to have claimed Agrabah then all of them together. Whatever fate one of them would've planned is now that many times worse!"

"Uh…" Genie replied, for once at a loss for words.

"But it doesn't matter," Aladdin said, rising up. "Agrabah's in trouble _now_—and if anyone can defeat these guys—together or separate—it's me."

"_That's _the Al I remember!" Genie cheered, causing confetti to rain down from the ceiling and waving little flags with Aladdin's face on them. "So, what's the plan?"

"I have no idea," Aladdin admitted.

"ATTENTION AGRABAH!" boomed a voice over the loudspeakers in Genie's high-tech security cave.

Aladdin and Genie both turned their attention back to the monitors, which now displayed Mirage standing atop the very tower they themselves were currently within. Her voice must have been magically amplified, for every terrified citizen huddled with their families in the mud-brick dwellings below seemed to be listening intently, as were the villains now surrounding the Palace. Whereas Mirage's speech brought terror to Agrabah, however, it brought smiles to its enemies.

"YOUR HEROES HAVE FAILED YOU!" Mirage continued, her words like poisoned honey to the ears of those cowering in the city far below. "THEY HIDE THEMSELVES IN THIS FORTRESS OF A PALACE IN RICH LUXURY WHILE YOU ARE AT OUR MERCY!"

"That's not true!" Aladdin shouted. "Genie, lift the gates! I have to go out there and do… _something_!"

"But Al," Genie protested. "If you go out there without a plan then Mirage and the rest will just kill you and _then _kill the populace! Let's just let the scary kitty make her demands while formulate a real doozy send Mirage and her minions packing!"

Although Aladdin hated to admit it, he had to agree with Genie. Mirage and the other adversaries were tough enough on their own, but rushing to take them all on at once would be like a cube of ice trying to hold its own in the middle of the desert on a scorching summer day. If they wanted to beat Mirage and the others, Aladdin and his own friends would have to come up with a plan—and a good one.

As Aladdin and Genie rushed downstairs to consult the others, who had doubtlessly noticed the disturbance by now, Mirage continued.

"WE WILL GIVE YOU ONE HOUR TO HAND OVER ALADDIN TO US BEFORE WE DESTROY THE CITY," Mirage went on. WHETHER ALADDIN COMES WILLINGLY OR IS FORCED INTO OUR CAPTURE, WE CARE NOT—BUT IT'S EITHER ALADDIN OR AGRABAH…_AND THE CLOCK'S TICKING_!"

**. . .**

"Aladdin!" princess Jasmine, Aladdin betrothed, cried as she rushed over to him. Aladdin and Genie had just arrived in the Sultan's throne room, were the rest of the Palace's inhabitants had already assembled. Flinging her arms around the young man, Jasmine whispered in his ear. "I was afraid they had already gotten you!"

"Not yet," Aladdin said ominously, returning her embrace. "But I'm afraid they might before the hour's up.

"What are you talking about, my boy?" the Sultan, Jasmine's father and the ruler of Agrabah, questioned worriedly. Instead of sitting atop his heavily cushioned throne like he normally would be this time of day, the Sultan was instead seated at the head of a low-lying table he had had brought out just for the occasion. The table, usually used only for dinner with foreign ambassadors and other state-related matters, was now covered with charts and maps of Agrabah.

"Al's afraid he'll have to give himself up," Genie blurted.

"What?" cried the rest of the people assembled at the table, almost unanimously.

"Good," said a lone voice. "It seems the boy is finally thinking sensibly."

"Razoul," scolded the Sultan. "How could you say such a thing?"

Razoul, head of the Palace guard, sat opposite the Sultan, and was pouring over the charts of the city as if he was preparing for a war.

_Which he probably is_ Aladdin thought, although he doubted Razoul and the rest of the Palace guard had any idea what they were getting into. Threats to Agrabah on _this _scale were usually left without question to Aladdin, Genie, and the rest of Agrabah's unofficial defenders.

"I've watched Aladdin and his little _freak show_—minus the princess, of course—battle these equally abominable criminals before," Razoul explained darkly, without looking up from his charts. "But never all at once. It was a miracle the _street rat_ ever defeated any of them in the first place, but even my guards would be hard pressed to stop these menaces to Agrabah all at the same time, and I highly doubt Aladdin can do what we cannot."

"Hold your tongue, Razoul!" Jasmine commanded just like the princess she was.

"Sorry, princess," Razoul mockingly apologized. "But this is _war_, and I think it's better the _street rat _than us."

Aladdin's temper flared up at the mention of his old, hated derogatory name—reminding him of just how much he'd had to go through to earn the right _not _to be called by it. He'd gone from a thieving waif in the slums of the city to the pawn of the mad sorcerer Jafar, former advisor to—and secret conspirator against—the Sultan. But despite all of that, Aladdin had risen from the crime-laden underbelly of Agrabah to steal the magic lamp from the Cave of Wonders, a living warehouse that rather inconveniently tried to eat all of those who tried to steal from it—and then digest them in lava. Sure, Aladdin had used the genie inside the lamp—now his lifelong freed friend, Genie—to trick everyone in Agrabah into thinking he was a famous foreign prince in order to seek princess Jasmine's hand in marriage…and consequently allowed the lamp to fall into Jafar's hands, letting him nearly depose the Sultan, enslave Jasmine, and grind the citizens of Agrabah beneath his iron fist.

But Aladdin had also defeated Jafar, even with all the magic he had gained from Genie…_twice_. And he'd done it without any of Genie's magic at all—using instead his wits and the help of some friends, from Abu to the magical flying Carpet.

And in the end, Aladdin _had_ ended up with princess Jasmine—not because of his magically-gained wealth, but because of the person underneath the illusion…_himself_.

By now, Aladdin certainly didn't think he deserved to be called _street rat _ever again—especially by the pompous head of the Palace guard, who'd had everything handed to him on a silver platter.

"Now you listen hear, _Razoul_," Aladdin called, marching right up to the head guard and preparing to give the man a piece of his mind.

But Razoul stood up before Aladdin could grab the guard by the scruff of his collar and pull him up as he'd been planning to. Putting his large, meaty hand warningly on the hilt of his scimitar, Razoul glared down at Aladdin. The big man easily weighed twice as much as the thin hero, and towered over Aladdin.

"Listen to _what_, boy?" Razoul spat, tightening the grip on his sword's hilt. "To the indignant ravings of a _street rat_?"

Despite the head guard's considerable girth and height (not to mention sword), Aladdin was undaunted. He crouched into a defensive stance, ready to leap at a moment's notice, daring Razoul to make a move. Razoul may be fast with a sword, but he knew better than to challenge Aladdin directly. The young man was craftier than a platoon of Palace guards, not that Razoul would ever have admitted it, and more than a worthy adversary for the veteran Palace protector.

"STOP!" cried the Sultan, snapping both Aladdin and Razoul out of their deadly stand-off. "There's a horde of unspeakable outlaws threatening to destroy Agrabah and you two are squabbling over a petty feud between social classes?"

"Father's right," Jasmine chimed in. "Fighting amongst ourselves is exactly what Mirage would want us to be doing."

Aladdin, suddenly feeling the fool for having been about to walk into what he had to agree was Mirage's plan exactly, straightened up from his battle stance. Putting on a grim smile, he offered Razoul his hand in a sign of truce.

With a gruff _humph_, Razoul turned and strode back to his place pouring over the charts of Agrabah, leaving Aladdin's proffered handshake unanswered.

"Tough crowd," Genie commented, watching Aladdin sigh with frustration before turning himself to join Jasmine at the table. Taking her hand as he sat down, Aladdin began to look a little more at ease, but the trouble brewing out in the streets was obviously weighing heavily on the young hero's mind.

"Now then," the Sultan announced, happy to finally get things in order. "We can't allow these miscreants to harm the city, but we can't allow them to harm Aladdin either. Any ideas?"

"Why _don't _we let them harm Aladdin?" Razoul blurted, seeming to be beyond caring whether or not he was in the Sultan's favor. "There's an army of adversaries out there and all they want is to brutally murder just _one _boy! Why should we risk the whole city over him?"

"Because," the Sultan explained, obviously angry at being defied twice in one day. "Aladdin is our best hope of beating these villainous…_villains_…and if we hand over Aladdin without a fight, they'll simply destroy Agrabah anyway."

"Finally!" Genie agreed. "_Someone_'s making some sense around here!"

Razoul grumbled, but was silent.

"But…" Genie continued. "What _do _we do?"

"We call on some friends," the Sultan said mischievously, a gleam in his eyes the others had never seen.


	3. Chapter 3

Chaos Catastrophe, Chapter 3: Friends Fight Foes

"_Charge_!" shouted a cavalcade of Agrabah's finest fighters, all rushing bursting out of the sand of the city's streets atop the giant spider-like creatures known as the Unkhbut. Not so long ago, all of Agrabah had been terrified of the misunderstood monsters—including the "fearless" Aladdin—but then again, most of the citizens had also believed the Unkhbut to be nothing more than children's stories told to frighten young ones.

That was, until, the Unkhbut had paid Agrabah a most unwelcome visit.

A huge section of the city had collapsed, and many feared that the legendary Unkhbut were to blame. Much of Agrabah feared that the Unkhbut had caused the horrible destruction so that they could feed on the citizens of the surface world, carrying them off screaming silently through cocoons of spider silk only to be injected with deadly venom and fed to the Unkhbut's young.

They'd been half-right—the Unkhbut _had _caused the cave-in, but completely by accident. The large spidery beings were subterranean farmers, whose diets consisted chiefly of potatoes. When the Unkhbut had tunneled under Agrabah in search of more room to grow their crops and raise their young, they had unknowingly dug deep inside the very unstable foundations of a human city far above.

The Agrabah Aladdin and his friends knew was not the original—there had been many before it, all bearing the same name. Each time one city passed away, its descendant was built on the ruins of the old, leaving the crumbling remains of old cities underneath the new.

When the Unkhbut had burrowed their way through the loose rock and dirt of these buried Agrabahs, much of the earth on top of them had fallen in, causing the center of the newest city to fall on its ancestors beneath. A few Unkhbut had crawled out of this selfsame hole, but not to feast on the flesh of the city as Agrabah's citizens had so feared.

Instead, the Unkhbut had come to the surface to apologize for their accident, and show the people that had been affected by the calamity that the calamity was just that—an accident. Hoping to avoid their mistake being seen as an act of war by the creatures on the surface world, the Unkhbut had almost caused that same war when simply trying to be ambassadorial.

Obviously, there was much problem with communication.

But in the end, it was finally realized that the Unkhbut were not to be feared, but befriended. The frightening creatures were actually quite gentle and peaceful.

This first encounter between the Unkhbut and the citizens of Agrabah ended up leading to a trading partnership that greatly benefited both parties. The Unkhbut were only too happy to trade many of the shiny stones and other such objects they encountered in the digs, yet considered worthless because they were not food, to the humans—who in exchange gave the Unkhbut all kinds of fruits, vegetables, seeds, and plants of all kinds, many of which the Unkhbut had never encountered and eagerly began to grow themselves.

But other than trading, the Unkhbut and the humans rarely interacted—each recognized that the other did not belong in their world, even if they could be friends.

All of that changed today.

Over the course of their interactions, the people of Agrabah and the Unkhbut had learned ways around their communication barrier, and each had developed the means to make their basic messages understood by the other.

When the Sultan had explained to the Unkhbut in their caverns below the city (now safely stabilized by a collaboration of human and Unkhbut engineers, the latter knowing more about raw dirt and the former knowing more about how to deal with the ruins of manmade constructions) and explained to them that Agrabah above was threatened, the Unkhbut had only been too willing to aide their allies. However, the spidery creatures were even more eager to assist when the human engineers who had helped stabilize the tunnels of Agrabah below elucidated that the destruction of the surface city would destabilize the caverns of the city below, causing a cave-in even larger than the one the Unkhbut had inadvertently caused upon their arrival to the city. Not only would Agrabah above be destroyed, but so too would Agrabah below.

The various villains had planned on the possibility of counterattack—but not like this. Mirage's battle plans only covered resistance retaliating from the Palace, not from atop the backs of giant spider-creatures that popped out of the ground throughout the city. Agrabah had been like a ghost town only moments before, and now it was swarming with armed guards riding spiders the size of hippopotamuses.

"Spiders!" squealed Mechanicles atop one of his towering clockwork creations—this time a humanoid robot the size of the Palace. "I _hate _spiders!"

The brass giant began frantically stomping its feet, smashing houses, storefronts, and stalls as its engineer and pilot, the deranged Greek inventor, tried to squish the army of arachnids.

But the Unkhbut were quick—both on their feet and with their webbing. Not only did Mechanicles fail to step on any of the creatures or their riders, his automaton tripped over a net of spider-silk two of the Unkhbut had strung up across a street. Crashing to the ground, the clockwork contraption burst apart, gears and springs flying every-which way.

Mechanicles himself was thrown to the sandy ground when his robot's head burst open upon impact, spewing its pilot and the knobs and levers used to operate it across the otherwise empty marketplace. He was then strung up in yet more webbing from the same Unkhbut who had tripped his robot, woven into a silky cocoon and carried back underground to be placed in the spider-creature's subterranean prison.

The other villains fell similarly.

Nefir Hasenuf and his posse of imps had brought weapon after elaborate weapon, each custom built to use against Aladdin. However, the imps were only too happy to fire those same weapons at the Unkhbut and their riders. Despite the multitude of dangerous weapons the imps had brought, though, they weren't very good shots—and ended up blasting more houses than they did Unkhbut and riders.

But no matter how many weapons the Palace guards riding the Unkhbut destroyed, the imps always built more with their incredible speed and ability to construct new devices out of almost anything.

That was, until the Unkhbut were finally able to tie up the imps with spider string, sticking their hands and feet together to prevent them from gaining access to any building materials, much less allowing them the ability to move and use them. The guards then quickly destroyed the remaining weapons, and Nefir and his imps were carted off to join Mechanicles.

Abis Mal, the short, plump desert thief and his partner in crime, the tall and lanky Haroud, had stolen a large gemstone from a traveler in the market place just a few days before the siege of Agrabah. The two thieves had been quite happy to discover that the gem was magical, and shot fire whenever its current holder asked it too.

They were even happier to demonstrate this power to the Unkhbut and their riders.

"FIRE!" shouted Abis Mal, releasing a torrent of flame at an Unkhbut and its rider as they leapt from building to building.

But as Abis was busy burning up the mud-brick buildings the Unkhbut had just been on, he was unable to notice the ones creeping up on him from behind.

"Um, Abis…?" intoned Haroud nervously, tapping his longtime fellow thief on the shoulder.

"Not now, Haroud!" yelled Abis Mal without turning around. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"But—"

"No buts!" interrupted Abis, as he once again scorched to a cinder the corner of a building that had only moments ago been occupied by an Unkhbut's scurrying feet.

Haroud sighed, sensing yet another of the duo's inevitable defeats approaching. Drawing the cheaply made scimitar he'd swiped from a blacksmith a few weeks prior, he cautiously stepped towards the Unkhbut and their riders.

Of course, Haroud didn't have time to actually _use _his scimitar—the Unkhbut and their spider silk saw to that. Meanwhile, Razoul himself stepped up behind Abis, who was still busy misfiring on the guard's diversion.

Hearing the footsteps behind him, Abis shouted "Quiet, Haroud! I _almost_ havethem!"

"And we _do _have _you_," whispered Razoul menacingly into Abis' ear, sliding his exquisitely crafted scimitar beneath the desert thief's throat. Abis gulped, not daring to make a move.

All of the other villains each fell likewise, all disarmed, cocooned, and thrown into the Unkhbut's underground prison. All, that is, excerpt Mirage.

"NO!" Mirage hissed, watching her army crumble in the city below. The cat-woman had remained high atop the Palace's tallest tower, trying to maintain the sandstorm that had concealed her cohorts. The sand, like so many of her illusions, obscured Mirage and the other attackers from those who would oppose them. Mirage had thought that this would make her army impossible to defeat—after all, how could you defend yourself against an adversary you couldn't see?—but this was proving less and less true by the minute.

_It must be those pesky Unkhbut_, Mirage thought, recognizing the rarely-seen creatures. _They must somehow be able to see through the sandstorm._

It made sense—the Unkhbut, though they used glowing crystals to provide their underground farms with light, spent most of their time in dark tunnels and caverns devoid of any luminescence. Like other creatures who lived in darkness, the Unkhbut must employ some kind of sense the creatures who lived in the light lacked, allowing them to see what others could not—i.e., Mirage's army.

As more and more of Mirage's army fell, the sandstorm became harder and harder to maintain. There was less and less hatred and fear to power the spell.

"This is impossible," Mirage thought out-loud. "Aladdin shouldn't have been able to defeat us, not _this _time!"

"But I did anyway."

Mirage spun around to see Aladdin, riding atop the magic flying carpet, landing atop the Palace tower. The hero's genie, the princess, and those obnoxious animals were nowhere in sight, however—meaning Aladdin and the rug were alone.

Perhaps she could take them after all.

"So it seems I _was _wrong," Mirage purred, trying to lull Aladdin and the carpet into a false sense of security. "You weren't a coward after all—you fought for your city, and you won."

"So we did," Aladdin agreed, watching Mirage intently for any sudden movements or signs of warning.

"…Or _did _you?" Mirage whispered maliciously.

"Huh?" Aladdin stopped, confused. "What are talking about, Mirage?"

"You mean you don't know?" Mirage continued, obviously enjoying the hero's discomfort. "You may have stopped us, but not before we destroyed your city!"

With a wave of her hand, Mirage let fall the spell keeping the sandstorm going, thus revealing the ruins of Agrabah far below.

"No…" whispered Aladdin at the sight. "It can't be…"

"Gaze upon it, hero," Mirage went on, her black heart filling with enjoyment at the sight of Aladdin's horror. "Let the despair fill you, Aladdin—this is _your _fault, after all. It was _you _who united us against Agrabah."

Far below the tower of the Palace, Agrabah lay in rubble. Mud-brick buildings lay blasted by the blaze of Abis Mal's jewel, crushed beneath Mechanicles' robot's feet, waylaid by Nefir and the imps' multitude of weaponry, or demolished in a plethora of other ways.

"Thousands of homes, and even more people who once lived in them, _gone_," Mirage purred.

"Well, I guess you're right, Mirage," Aladdin sighed, hunkered over and hugging his knees as he looked forlornly out at what was once the city of Agrabah. "The buildings are all destroyed…

"…But the _people _aren't!"

"What?" gasped Mirage, and saw to her own dismay that he was right. "Impossible!"

Despite all the rubble and ruin below, the cat-woman could not spot a single corpse. Not a single person, alive or dead, could be seen.

"Not quite," Aladdin said, grinning slyly. "Show her, Genie!"

"You got it, Al!"

Suddenly, the entire Palace beneath Aladdin and Mirage's feet turned transparent, as if made of glass. Hundreds of people filled it up from top to bottom, filling hallways, the throne room, and every other conceivable space in the structure.

They looked very uncomfortable—they _were _packed like sardines. But they were also _alive_.

"How?" Mirage demanded, furiously. "How could you have saved them? I watched Agrabah fall piece by piece with my own two eyes!"

"Well, before each of your friends destroyed a part of the city," Aladdin explained. "Genie flew through the place, clearing everyone out and transporting them to the Palace."

"NO!" hissed Mirage, shaking with anger. The cat-woman lifted a claw, which bristled with green, malevolent energy, and swiped down at the Palace beneath her feet—attacking it with her fiercest magic.

Suddenly the Palace shook, almost knocking Mirage and Aladdin off—but when they regained their balance, they saw that the people inside the still see-through structure remained none the worse for wear.

"The Palace may be a ghost of its former self," Genie said, appearing beside Aladdin. "But it's still the Genie-fortified 'Palace of Protection!'"

Mirage roared with rage, fuming.

"I will get you yet, Aladdin!" she threatened. "Even if it takes me and every other force of evil you've ever encountered an eon!"

"I'm afraid you'd be alone in that, Mirage," Aladdin countered, and smirking. "All of the rest of Agrabah's enemies are safely jailed in a prison of the Unkhbut's, deep underground! It's you versus the entire people of Agrabah, who, as you can see, are alive and well!"

Mirage's face lit up.

"They may be alive and well for _now_," Mirage said, her familiar malicious grin returning as she realized something. "But they won't be for long."

"What?" Aladdin wondered, his grin still present but slightly wavering. "Do you think you defeat Agrabah all by yourself?"

"No," Mirage replied. "Time will do it for me. The populace of Agrabah may be safe, but without a city to house them, they will slowly starve and die of thirst as society dissolves into a greedy mass of backstabbers, desperate to survive on the few remaining resources."

Aladdin's expression suddenly did a reversal of its own, realizing that Mirage was right. Without the city, the Palace was the only place to keep the citizens of Agrabah—but even it was proving too small for them. How were he and the others supposed to feed an entire city without the food, wells, and other necessities Mirage and the rest of the villains had destroyed?


End file.
